


World Enough and Time

by Thistlerose



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Canon, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-15
Updated: 2011-01-15
Packaged: 2017-10-14 19:04:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/152457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thistlerose/pseuds/Thistlerose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brian comes home from college and ends up on the wrong doorstep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	World Enough and Time

**Author's Note:**

> This is an older story (written in mid-2005) that I'd forgotten about until this afternoon.

Brian comes home from college the night before Thanksgiving. He wakes in Michael's bed. He doesn't remember driving to Michael's house, let alone entering, but he knows it's Michael's bed because of the Captain Astro print on the pillow, and because Michael is sitting next to him, his knees tucked up against his chest, watching him.

"Hello," Brian tries to say, but his jaws don't seem to want to open, and his tongue seems to have attached itself to the roof of his mouth. It occurs to Brian that he is very, very hung over and that if he moves his head even a fraction of an inch…

Yes, excruciating pain. Well, this accounts for the gaping holes in his memory and for Michael's slightly alarmed expression.

"You were really drunk last night," Michael says. He probably says it quietly, but the words hammer at Brian's temples. He closes his eyes again.

"Uh, yeah," he manages to croak after several thick swallows. "I'd…noticed."

He's vaguely curious about how he got here after leaving the club. _Club_ , he thinks muzzily. There'd been a club somewhere between Carnegie Mellon and here. Funny how his pulse still throbs with the music even though he doesn't remember a damn thing else about it. He wonders if he fucked anyone while he was there. Probably, he thinks smugly.

Michael's quiet, but Brian can't quite work up the strength to ask him how the fuck he got here. Fortunately, after another moment or two, Michael decides to enlighten him.

"It was a little after two, I guess. Mom and Vic were asleep. I realized I forgot something in the car, so I went out to get it and I found you throwing up in our garbage can."

"Oh," says Brian, suddenly glad that he doesn't remember.

"I got you inside," Michael continues. "Upstairs. I got you a drink. Of _water_. You threw up again. Then I got you into bed and you passed out."

Unbidden, vague images swim back to Brian sluggishly. "Did I…?"

"You got up once to use to bathroom. You could barely walk." Suddenly Michael seems angry. He still speaks in a low voice, but his lips turn downward and he gets that little crease between his eyebrows. "You were _really_ drunk. And you _drove_ here from wherever you were. You're lucky you didn't crash your car. You're lucky you didn't get killed. What were you trying to _do?_ "

"Since I usually succeed at whatever I try," Brian mumbles, "it should be pretty obvious I was trying to get drunk."

"Why?" demands Michael.

 _Why?_ A stupid question. Brian always does what he feels like doing. Last night, he obviously felt like getting drunk, getting laid, probably getting high, and crashing with the Novotnys instead of…

 _Oh, yeah._

The dorms had closed, and he hadn't felt like spending the holiday with anyone from college. Which left him with two options, his parents' house and Michael's. Brian is fairly certain that when he'd left campus his eventual destination had been his parents' house. He'd obviously changed his mind somewhere on the way.

While he's figuring this out, Michael is still glowering at him. He looks so disapproving that Brian almost wants to laugh. He _would_ laugh if he weren't certain that doing so would be very, very painful right now.

Brian isn't bothered by Michael's disapproval. He'll never admit it aloud, but there's something comforting about it. He's been living away from home for three months now, and he's spent a good portion of that time being lectured at by dried up middle-aged men and women who probably think he's got nothing better to do than sit quietly and lap up every word of bullshit that they spew. He's spent a _better_ portion of that time falling into and out of unfamiliar beds, grinding against unfamiliar asses, being sucked off by unfamiliar mouths, shoving and being shoved against filthy, unfamiliar walls in filthy, unfamiliar clubs and bars.

It's oddly comforting, after all that time, to be sprawled across Michael Novotny's bed, with his head on Michael Novotny's ugly pillow, blinking as Michael Novotny sits there and disapproves of him in his familiar torn and faded blue jeans, and his familiar cheap burgundy sweater with the frayed cuffs.

"What?" asks Michael warily, and Brian realizes that he's smiling.

"Nothing," Brian says.

"What are you grinning about?"

"Nothing. You. Turning into Deb."

Michael makes a face.

"Hey," Brian says, his smile falling. "Deb doesn't know I'm here, does she?"

"I didn't tell her. If she'd heard you, you know she'd have been in here hours ago, trying to get you to eat."

Brian's stomach churns at the suggestion of food. He closes his eyes again. His breath comes fast and shallow.

"You look awful." There's a hint of sympathy in Michael's tone finally. "D'you want me to get Mom? She and Vic are downstairs, watching the Macy's parade. And cooking. Vic's doing the cooking this year, so maybe we'll have turkey that isn't burned for once. D'you want--?"

If Brian opens his mouth, more than words will come out, he's afraid, so he just shakes his head quickly. The movement is obviously the signal for _someone_ to fire a volley of arrows at his temples. He groans.

"All right." Michael's whisper grazes Brian's ear. "I won't tell anyone you're here. I guess I'll just let you sleep some more. I'll bring you some food later. There's cranberry sauce and sweet potatoes and…"

Brian's stomach coils tightly and his second groan is almost a scream.

"Sorry." Michael's lips brush his neck. Then he's away, bouncing the bed as he gets up, and Brian has to clench his fists and jaws tightly.

In a little while, he thinks, after Michael has gone, in a little while he'll stop feeling like he's been chewed up and spat out. The room will stop shaking. He'll be able to sleep and when he wakes up again it will be all right. He'll go downstairs and talk to Michael's mother and uncle, and answer their questions about college. A bit later, he'll find his car and drive over to his parents' house and he'll be able to deal with them and his sister.

Later, Brian thinks. Later. First, he needs to stop. Just for a little while. Everything needs to stop.

*

 

It's evening when he wakes again. He can't see the clock or the window from where he lies, but he knows that a lot of time has passed. His stomach feels empty and oddly dry. His brain feels like it's been wrapped in gauze. He turns his head on the pillow and there's Michael, curled up beside him, asleep, one hand tucked under his cheek, the other resting on the blanket beside a tray. On the tray is a red Tupperware bowl covered in Saran wrap. Soup. Next to the bowl, leaning a bit precariously against Michael's wrist, is a plastic thermos with the Transformers logo. Water, thinks Brian. It had better be plain, boring water.

His gaze roves back to Michael's face, which is peaceful in repose. The brow and lips are relaxed, the thick dark lashes fanned downward. Brian finds himself missing the brown eyes. He'd see them if he reached over and nudged Michael, jostled him out of sleep.

He won't do it.

 _I could fall in love,_ Brian thinks. It rattles in his gauze-wrapped brain. _I could fall in love._

But then it _would_ stop, all of it. The clubs, the dancing, the music that still bubbles in his blood, the fucking, the sucking. He'd be _with_ somebody, and everything else would just stop.

He's cold suddenly. Michael threw a blanket over him while he was sleeping, but right now it's not doing much. It's too thin. Warmth just drains out of it and gets lost in the crisp November air.

Brian looks at Michael again and feels something shiver in his chest. Years hover around them. He can see them, with their wings and their little taloned feet, waiting to drag wrinkles across his face and Michael's, waiting to tug at their skin until it sags.

He looks away.

There'll be time enough for loving Michael in the future. In a time so distant that eighteen-year-old Brian can't imagine it. All he has to know is that it exists and that love will be there when he's ready for it.

When he's ready.

He should go, he thinks. He can hear Deb and Vic talking downstairs, but he thinks he can manage the drainpipe now. He won't make a sound, won't even shake the bed when he rises. He's had plenty of practice with that. He can just _go_.

 _I'm going,_ Brian thinks. _Now._

But he doesn't. Now becomes soon becomes in a little while becomes later. He's still there when Michael opens his eyes, but by then there's no danger. Brian will fall in love, but not now. He's tucked the promise away to be forgotten, then remembered sometime in the faraway future.

Right now he just smiles weakly and says "Mikey" and then laughs at the way his voice rustles in his dry throat.

"There's water," Michael says, righting the thermos. "And soup. It's chicken soup. We had some frozen in the freezer. I thawed it out. It's probably cold again by now, though."

Brian leans across the tray and kisses Michael's mouth. There's a splutter of surprise that becomes a soft moan. The sound almost catches Brian, but he slips away, pulls back, his tongue slowly withdrawing from between Michael's parted lips.

Michael's body hums with _now_ and _yes._ Brian feels it even when they're no longer touching.

He has to get out of here, he thinks. He should go now and face his parents and sister while he can still taste Michael on his lips. But when he starts to get up he finds that his arms and legs are leaden.

"You know," Michael says. "I've missed you. I was hoping I'd get to see you…"

Brian lingers.

08/12/05


End file.
